Profile

My research career started shortly after I enrolled in the graduate Computer Science program at UNR. I became interested in Intent Recognition and its uses for social behavior. In September of 2017 I started working in the Socially Assistive Robotics Lab on a project dedicated to that research area. Since then, I have also worked on projects in Computer Vision, Machine Learning, Neural Networks, Calibration. In the Spring of 2020, I earned my Master’s degree.

When I started my undergraduate degree, I didn’t know what I wanted to study. I felt a strong pull to Computer Science. However, I have had other interests in language and writing for a long time. My second and third year of undergraduate studies were an exploration of these other interests. I studied Linguistics, Creative Writing, and Old English. At the end of my exploration period I needed to raise money to finish my degree. I spent a year away from school and worked at FedEx. This cemented my drive to finish my degree in a scientific field.

I returned to my studies and took a Mathematical Proofs class. I fell in love with the rigorous logic needed to prove things mathematically. I changed majors to mathematics shortly after the conclusion of this class. For the next year and a half I studied Applied Mathematics. I graduated with the highest GPA of my peers in the math program which earned me the title of Westfall Scholar.

Near the end of my undergraduate studies I began to realize that I wanted to use math to solve Computer Science problems. After a car accident where my wife and I were rear-ended and pushed into an intersection, I wanted to work in the field of robots, since autonomous cars are in that area of study. During the first few weeks of my graduate studies, I learned what I was really interested in was Intent Recognition. If the car behind us could have reacted faster and known that we were going to slow down and stop at the yellow light, our accident would not have happened. So I set out a goal to work in a lab doing Intent Recognition. I found the Socially Assistive Robotics Lab and asked if I could work on a project dealing with Intent Recognition and Navigation. This was perfect because I saw how this research could be extended to all robotic systems and not just social robots or autonomous cars.

My other interests outside of school are expansive. I love to hike, bicycle, write novels, read, travel, do home improvement, garden, and play with son and my dogs. I love to spend time with my son more than just about anything. I have a lot of smaller interests such as learning the Norwegian language, studying Viking culture, and trying my hand at woodworking. It is hard to find time to do everything that I want to, but I make it work.

I am predominantly optimistic for my own future and the future of science. I try hard to treat others with respect and dignity. I live my life with the philosophy of, “Leave the world a better place than you found it.”